Chapter 18 Increased Exposure
Increased exposure
Across the room, Emma watched him from the dining table, laptop open but ignored.
He’d detected her attention shift from the screen to him about ten minutes ago. She hadn’t typed a word since.
He checked the magazine spring tension, counted rounds out of habit—fifteen plus one—and slid it back home. The ritual settled something in his psyche. Weapons maintenance wasn’t only preparation. It was meditation.
“Do you really do that every night?”
Her voice cut through the silence.
Zach glanced up. “Yes.”
“All of them?”
“Yes.”
She leaned back in her chair, arms crossed. Not hostile. Just… curious. Fascinated. As if he were defusing a bomb rather than maintaining basic equipment.
He set the Glock on the table and moved to the window, scanning the perimeter. Moonlight silvered the beach. Wind blew through the palms in rhythmic waves. No shadows appeared where they shouldn’t be. No movement except natural patterns.
“You checked that window five minutes ago.”
He shifted to the next one. “I know.”
Emma closed her laptop. Deliberately. A movement that he somehow knew signaled a conversation he didn’t want to have.
“I can’t stay locked in this cottage another night.”
There it was.
Zach completed his survey before turning to face her. “You’re not locked in.”
She gestured at the windows he’d just checked. “You examine those every five minutes. You position yourself between me and the door. You’ve mapped every sightline from the tree line.” She stood, frustration bleeding into her posture. “I feel like I’m in prison.”
The words hit him harder than she likely intended.
Because he understood the feeling better than most people.
Forward operating bases. Weeks inside razor wire and HESCO barriers. Walking the same perimeter until you memorized every rock, every shadow, every potential kill zone. The way confinement pressed against your ribs until you wanted to run straight into the desert to feel space around you again.
He’d never told anyone that.
Zach studied Emma’s face. The tension lining her eyes. The rigidity in her shoulders. She wasn’t being dramatic. She was genuinely struggling.
The tactical part of his brain ran immediate threat assessments. Taking her outside increased exposure. Added variables outside his control. Created opportunities for—
He shut that down.
Standing, Zach grabbed a flashlight from his gear bag near the door. He did a quick visual sweep of the beach through the window, checking approach angles.
He blew out a breath. “Get your shoes.”
Emma blinked. “Why?”
“We’re going for a walk.”
Surprise flickered across her face. Genuine surprise. Like she thought he would double down, not adapt.
Smart woman.
She shoved her feet into her sneakers without another word.
The night air hit differently from the daytime heat. Cooler. Salt-sharp. A breeze that carried sound farther than it should.
Zach stalked ahead as his vision adjusted to moonlight and shadow.
The beach spread silver-white to his left.
Jungle darkness pressed in close on the right.
He tracked both systematically, cataloging normal sounds—surf rolling in steady rhythm, wind through palm fronds, a distant generator hum from the resort construction site.
“Do you ever stop doing that?”
Emma’s voice came from behind his left shoulder. Close enough for him to adjust position if needed. Far enough to not crowd her.
“Doing what?”
“Looking for trouble.”
“No.”
Her laugh was quiet and genuine. Not mocking. Just… amused.
The sound resonated somewhere unexpected in his chest.
They walked in silence. Zach kept them at the tree-line’s—clear visibility of the beach, cover accessible if needed. His boots found firm sand while he tracked the environment.
“Is this helping?” he asked.
Emma took a long breath. Let it out slowly. “Yes.”
Good.
He hadn’t realized how her tension had affected him until some of it eased. Her stress had added to his tactical calculations, creating another variable to manage. If she relaxed, his job got easier.
That’s what he told himself, anyway.
“How do you stand it?” Emma asked. “Being on alert all the time?”
Zach considered the question. Most people didn’t ask about the reality of his work. They either romanticized it or avoided the entire subject.
“Forward operating bases,” he said. “Weeks inside the perimeter. Sometimes months.”
Emma glanced at him. “That sounds miserable.”
He shrugged. “You get used to it.” The words came out flat. Automatic. But something pushed him to add more. “Doesn’t mean it doesn’t get to you. That it doesn’t feel like a prison.”
A truth he hadn’t intended to share.
Emma didn’t rush to respond. She just walked beside him, processing. He appreciated that, the way she let silence exist without rushing to fill it.
“I guess we’re both adjusting to confinement,” she finally said. “You’re just better at it.”
“Practice.”
“Lucky you.”
The dry delivery surprised a sound from him, almost a laugh. He couldn’t remember the last time he'd truly laughed.
Emma noticed it. He felt her attention shift; a small smile tugged at her lips.
“Did you just laugh?”
“No.”
“You did. I heard it.”
“You heard wrong.”
“So this is your idea of nightlife?” Emma asked, warmth threading through her voice. “Armed escort around the island?”
This time a smile touched his mouth despite himself.
“You’re welcome.”
They rounded a curve where the beach narrowed, and the jungle pressed in closer. Moonlight painted everything in shades of silver and shadow. Emma had loosened up, her earlier tension dissolving into something easier. She no longer watched him like he might snap at any second.
He didn’t realize how much that mattered until it shifted.
Then every instinct he possessed ignited at once.
Zach slowed without conscious thought. Nothing obvious triggered it. No sound. No movement. Only a sudden wrongness which lifted the hair along his nape. Combat had taught him one rule above all others: instincts existed for a reason.
“What?” Emma whispered.
She’d picked up on his change. Observant.
He scanned the tree line. Shadows lay thick beneath the trees. Wind moved through fronds in normal patterns. No break in the rhythm. No unnatural stillness. Nothing.
Unease crawled up his spine.
“Zach?”
He listened. Surf. Wind. Distant generator.
“Probably the wind,” he said.
He didn’t believe it.
They walked another twenty yards. He adjusted their angle, moving them farther from the jungle. Emma matched his pace without comment, trusting his judgment.
He slowed again near a gap in the palms where sand met undergrowth.
A partial footprint marked the ground.
Recent. Too clean for the wind to have left it alone this long. Boot sole, not a flip-flop. Security patrols wouldn’t come this far south without radioing him first.
Zach crouched, studying the edges without touching. Before he could process further, a night bird exploded from the palms above them, wings thrashing against leaves.
Emma jumped, hand flying to her chest.
Zach’s hand had already reached the knife at his belt. He scanned the canopy it launched from. Birds spooked for two reasons: predators or disturbance.
His gaze searched past the canopy into the undergrowth beyond.
A narrow gap in the palms caught his attention—wide enough for a clean view of the beach. One of the lower branches had been bent back, leaves hanging at the wrong angle.
Could have been the wind. Construction crews wander all over the island during the day.
He made a mental note of the location.
He searched the shadows. Nothing moved.
“Sorry,” Emma breathed. “That scared me.”
Zach forced his hand away from the blade. “It’s fine.”
It wasn’t fine. The footprint timing. The bird’s panicked flight. The feeling that crawled over his skin fifty yards back. He stood, still scanning. “We should head back.”
She didn’t argue. She must have picked up on something in his tone. Smart woman.
He changed their route without explanation, angling them deeper along the irregular edge where beach met jungle.
The terrain here broke up sightlines—patches of shadow, scattered palms, low brush that disrupted a clean shot from a distance.
His mind tracked their six while maintaining casual forward movement.
Emma matched his stride, no questions asked, just casually pointing out, "This isn't the way we came."
“I know.”
She didn’t push for an explanation. Just trusted him.
Her trust warmed something deep in his chest, even as his tactical awareness ran overtime. He cataloged every shadow, every movement, every sightline from the jungle. His hand stayed relaxed but ready. Not combat-ready, but prepared.
The cottage lights came into view.
Emma’s shoulders dropped slightly, tension easing from her posture.
“Okay,” she admitted as they approached the door. “I’ll admit that helped.”
Zach unlocked the door for Emma, scanning the perimeter one more time. His eyes drifted toward the break in the palms before stepping inside and reaching for the light switch, dimming the interior lights. “Good.”
Emma kicked off her sneakers and headed for the kitchen. “Want some tea? I’m making chamomile.”
“Sure.”
But he didn’t follow her yet. He did one more sweep of the visible beach. Checked sightlines from the tree line. Watched for movement that didn’t match wind patterns.
Nothing. He closed the door. Closed the curtains. The instinct still hummed under his skin. Wrong.
Something was wrong.
Zach locked the door.